


Just a Kid

by drwhom42



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Emotional Hurt, Hurt, LIKE BIG SPOILERS, Rating for Language, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-04
Updated: 2018-05-04
Packaged: 2019-05-02 06:20:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14538540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drwhom42/pseuds/drwhom42
Summary: After the events of Infinity War, Tony breaks the news to Aunt May.





	Just a Kid

Every fibre of his being was telling him not to do this.

Everything had happened so quickly. Quill flipping out, the fight on Titan, Strange giving up the Time Stone. Now the blue chick he got stuck with had piloted them back to Earth, and things just… weren’t the same.

They weren’t the same… without Peter.

The moment Peter said he wasn’t feeling good, Tony felt a panic attack coming on. As the teen collapsed into his arms sobbing as he vaporised into orange dust like the rest had, Tony almost fucking lost it. Strange saying there was no other way just poured salt in the wound. That soulless bastard knew the kid would die and said nothing.  
He ran his hand through his greying hair as he pressed the doorbell to the Ditko apartment building and heard Aunt May’s cheery voice come out. “Who is it?” “Tony,” he replied, trying to sound happy. Nothing could’ve made him happy at this moment.

The door opened, and Tony stepped through, accepting his fate. A walk up the stairs later, he knocked on the door and came face to face with Peter’s dear aunt. The woman who had to care for her sister’s kid while she and her husband went off to fuck-knows-where, and put up with his shit, and teach him how to dance. And she didn’t even know…

“Hey!” She said, drawing the billionaire Avenger out of his mind and back to reality. Tony exhaled, breaking a little smile at seeing her happy. Like everything was alright.  
“Hi. Can I come in?” “Oh, of course!” May replied, walking through the hall and out of sight as Tony followed. Could he do this? Could he break her heart? “You know, I thought you’d turn up! What with that giant doughnut appearing in the sky and causing a dust-quake. Thought it was another of your inventions gone wrong!” Great, now more salt in the Ultron wound. He would never fuckin’ live that down.

May kept rambling on, before she caught Tony’s attention again by mentioning Peter. “I’ve been worried sick about him for a couple days, but I thought, oh he’s probably still on that field trip getting…” May stopped when she came back into the living room, and saw Tony on the verge of tears, gripping the backrest of the sofa for dear life. “Tony?” Flashes of Peter dissipating, his apology, the sound of him crying all unloaded themselves on him while he fought to stay upright.

Fuck.

Eventually, he swallowed hard and gently let out, “I couldn’t save him.”

With that, he closed his eyes and waited for the inevitable. He heard May sigh out a, “What?” Before he opened his eyes again, to see her smile sliding off her face, replaced by a look of confusion. She gulped and tilted her head, as he got the strength to stand. “No,” she mumbled and wavered, “No, he was on a field trip, they were going to Allegheny to get samples of wildlife for biology. How did he…”

Tony hung his head as May trailed off. They both stood in silence, before Tony looked back up to see May a foot away from him. She sighed, before whispering loud enough so Tony could hear, “Was he… in his suit?”  
Tony squinted, leaning back and responding after a silence. “You knew?” “Yes, I knew.” May replied, as he sighed and rubbed his eyes. “Now don’t bullshit me,” the aunt continued, echoing Tony’s words from Siberia back at him, “was he being Spider-Man?!” Tony sighed again and nodded.

He tried to explain everything to the best of his ability, stuttering and gasping through sections involving that giant purple dickhead that ended it all. God, the way he spoke when… His left arm tensed as he explained how… how it happened. May dropped her head, as she listened to how her nephew dissipated from existence, apologising for something entirely not his fault, in his arms.  
“I’m sorry.” Tony gasped, once again on the verge of tears.  
May stepped closer to Tony, fingers dug into her palms trying to stay calm. There was a moment of silence between them, both racing through their own heads on what to say.

Then May slapped him.

He staggered back as May unloaded punch on slap on pull at his chest, letting out tears, and expletives, and damnation that he honestly agreed with at this moment. How could he have let the kid die? He could have gotten the space Brady Bunch to work out where they were and get back to Earth, he could’ve gotten Strange to open a portal, he could’ve tried to get Friday back online, he could’ve, he could’ve, he could’ve…

He let May unload on him for about half an hour. Call him as many names and insults as she wished, until she leant against the sofa and slid to the floor, exhausted. He blinked back tears as he backed away from Peter’s devastated matriarch, and hung his head once more with, “I’m so sorry.”  
May sniffed and looked up. “He was just a kid.”

Tony sighed, finally letting out the anguish he had bottled up for a couple of weeks now.

“Get out, Stark. Just get out.”

He did. He got out as quick as he could, not strong enough to even look at her. As he left, he clung to the railing at the top of the stairs as his whole body trembled and he finally started to cry. May’s words echoed through his head, as well as Peter’s last words, Thanos telling him he was “burdened with knowledge”, Strange saying “there was no other way”, it all got to him as he stumbled into the lift and closed the door.

“Fuck,” he whispered to himself as he reached out his shaking hand to press the button to the ground floor. The voices crowding his head died out, until one remained, repeating in his head.

“He was just a kid.”

He was just a kid.

And Tony let him die.


End file.
